The BCL-2 Database, BCL2DB, is a collection of sequence, structural and functional information about BCL-2 homologous and BH3-containing proteins, which are among the most studied in cell biology. Research over the years has expanded the list of proteins structurally or functionally linked to BCL-2 (B-cell lymphoma-2), the product of a proto-oncogene identified almost thirty years ago. Discovery of the BCL-2 gene defined a new class of proto-oncogenes that block cell death without enhancing cell proliferation. Today, this protein group is formed by a family of BCL-2 homologs (which have phylogenetic relationships), and by a collection of evolutionarily and structurally unrelated proteins characterized by the presence of a region of local sequence similarity with BCL-2, termed the BH3 motif. BCL-2 homologous proteins share a similar α-helical bundle fold (the BCL-2 domain), have up to four different BH motifs (BH1-BH4), and can be either anti-apoptotic (e.g., BCL-2 and BCL-xL) or pro-apoptotic (e.g., BAX, BAK and BID). All the other (non-BCL-2 homologous) proteins possessing a functional BH3 motif are pro-apoptotic (such as the BH3-only member BIM or the BH3 motif-containing protein Atg12) (see nomenclature).

The current BCL2DB release is 42.0 with 2719 entries and was last updated on 2020-02-18 (see news).

The BCL2DB service has been accessed 27614 times by 5809 unique users since 2013 (see statistics).

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